BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

“Very often, the difference between winning and losing largely depends on a team’s lasting power or endurance.”

Thus said the Reverend Fr. Austin V. Dowd S.J. when he pushed for a cross country race program at the Ateneo de Manila more than half a century ago.

Contrary to popular belief, the cross country race began in the University of the Philippines Los Baños and not at the Ateneo de Manila. And it started 20 years before the Fr. Dowd introduced it in the Loyola Heights campus in 1957.

A professor at the agricultural college, Nicholas Machan, used it as a means to condition his runners. Something he brought with him to the Manila campus of UP when he was assigned there years later.

Fr. Dowd saw how it benefited the UP tricksters and he decided that it was time to try it out at Loyola Heights. He went around the college to personally recruit and invite students to participate. It wasn’t easy at first as the attendees gradually thinned out after the first few practices.

Undaunted, the priest who would go on to coach several champion track and field teams of the Ateneo, stalked the cafeteria during lunch to recruit even more runners. “Everybody should go out and run in the afternoon it makes you strong,” he said by way of persuasion.

And for the inaugural cross country race at the Ateneo held on a Wednesday, July 17, 1957, there were 65 runners, but many more looked on in wonder and amusement. A lot was riding on the success of the inaugural event that kicked off the intramural season in the college. The runners had to run five kilometers not just around the campus but along Katipunan Road.

All the participants underwent a 15-minute period of stretching and just before Fr. Dowd fired the starting gun to begin the race, he bellowed, “Balderdash and bamboozlement!”

And off took the 65 running and elbowing their way to the run.

Ramon Falgui led almost all throughout but in the final 115 yards, Romulo Lacerna overtook him and finished at a time of 20 minutes and 16 seconds. Falgui, dead tired and panting heavily came in six seconds after while Donnie Gallardo placed third.

As good as the three were, the real favorites for the race were cheerleader and track star Jesse Paredes and teammate Tony Longa. But the two also took the opportunity to jaw one another throughout the race and as a result of the extra curricular activity, Paredes and Longa finished eighth and ninth respectively.

The race also featured a future star of the sport and athletics in Ateneo --freshman Eduardo Raymundo who ran the entire race barefoot. It became his signature style for all future events.

It was so successful that four other cross country races were held that year. Among those who participated were the NCAA basketball champions Blue Eagles led by Ed Ocampo, Bobby Littaua, and Jimmy Pestaño.

The cross country race meant running through fields, a forest, over streams, or any obstacle along the way. Following the inaugural race, it became a team sport where squads generally had seven runners and only the fastest five runners per team were eligible for the points system. It meant that whoever crossed the finish line – even if he was the first to do so – counted only as one point. The first team to get five runners across won the race.

Eventually, the team concept was scrapped and it became an individual raceonce more. But over time, the school-wide cross country race was eventually confined to the Ateneo High School in the 1990’s.

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What I do for a living?

I also write regularly for Business Mirror; philstar.com; abs-cbnnews.com, and rappler.com.

I am also currently the media officer for the Filoil Flying V Hanes Premier Cup, the National Basketball Training Center, and the Flying V Davao Thunders.

I do PR consultancy for a variety of clients that I do not want to divulge.

I used to teach journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University hand have given lectures about journalism, new media, marketing, and public relations at the Ateneo, UP Diliman, UST, San Beda, Immaculate Conception Academy, Miriam College, Mindanao State University, FIFA seminars, and a few other schools and organizations.

I used to write for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines Free Press, and Maxim Philippines. I have also contributed to FHM, Men's Health, Tower Sports NBA, Rebound, and a few other sports, interior design, and lifestyle magazines as well. Most recently, I was the editor-in-chief of PBA Life, the Official Lifestyle Magazine of the Philippine Basketball Association as well as Season 40 edition of Hardcourt, the season-in-review.

My blog, Bleachers' Brew, serves as a hub for many of my writings (but not all as there are some that are exclusive).

When I have free time, I listen to my collection of over 5,000 CDs, read, watch DVDs, or walk my dog around the subdivision.